Welcome to this episode of Physician’s Weekly podcast. I am your host, Dr. Rachel Giles, from Medicom Medical Publishers in collaboration with Physicians Weekly.
Today we have 2 very interesting and timely interviews to share with you.
Later in this podcast, Physician’s Weekly’s Senior Editor Julia Ernst interviews Dr. Karla O’Dell, from the University of Southern California, about tracheostomy procedures, in particular how you can do open bedside tracheostomies at a low cost without extra risks in safety outcomes. This is of course particularly relevant for this COVID-19 pandemic, and she also reflects on what she thinks those long-term implications will be.
But first, we speak with Professor Frank Staal, from the Dept of Immunology at the Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands, who was in the news this week because he co-led a team who treated the first baby with severe congenital immune deficiency (SCID) with gene therapy in the Netherlands, and the first time gene therapy has been used to treat this particular form of SCID worldwide. Have you ever heard of the 1976 movie “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble”? That was based on the story of David Vetter, who was born with SCID and lived in a plastic sterile bubble because he had essentially no immune system. New gene therapy techniques are offering alternatives to bone marrow transplants. The treatment in the news this week was effective and the baby is well with a competent immune system.
Enjoy listening!
Further reading
Tang L, West J, Lee E, Kharidia K, Hasday S, Chambers T, Kokot N, Swanson M, O'Dell K. Open Bedside Tracheostomy: Safe and Cost Saving but Underutilized Nationally. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2022 Apr 5:1945998221091905. doi: 10.1177/01945998221091905. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35380905.
Zheng M, Arora N, Chambers T, O'Dell K, Johns MM. Comparison of Treatment for Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis at a Public County Versus Private Academic Hospital. J Voice. 2022 Feb 20:S0892-1997(22)00018-2. doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.01.019. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35197218.
Klaver-Flores S, Zittersteijn HA, Canté-Barrett K, Lankester A, Hoeben RC, Gonçalves MAFV, Pike-Overzet K, Staal FJT. Genomic Engineering in Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells: Hype or Hope? Front Genome Ed. 2021 Jan 22;2:615619. doi: 10.3389/fgeed.2020.615619. PMID: 34713237; PMCID: PMC8525357.
Let us know what you thought of this week’s episode on Twitter: @physicianswkly
Want to share your medical expertise, research, or unique experience in medicine on the PW podcast? Email us at editorial@physweekly.com!
Thanks for listening!